Franklin D. Richard's Presidential Address of 1898

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 40, 1972, No, 4

Franklin D. Richards's Presidential Address of 1898

INTRODUCTION

LESS THAN THREE WEEKS after his appointment as president, and with scarcely more than one week's notice from the program committee, Franklin D. Richards delivered the address printed below on January 17, 1898, at the first Annual Meeting of the newly organized "State Historical Society of Utah." The speakers committee — consisting of John T. Caine, Henry W. Lawrence, and Robert C. Lund — had been appointed January 8 to arrange the program. In addition to Richards, they engaged Dr. Ellen B. Ferguson to explore the philosophical question of "The True Mission of History" and Joseph T. Kingsbury to extol the virtuous accomplishments of "The Utah Pioneers." The meeting was billed as a public musical and literary program, with a vocal solo by Nellie Holliday, although its official purpose was to meet the Society's constitutional requirement for an annual business meeting each third Monday of January. The seventy-six-year-old Richards and the entire slate of officers appointed by the organizing committee of December 28, 1897, were reelected to full-year terms in a concluding gesture of the meeting in the Theosophical Hall on West Temple Street in Salt Lake City. The full texts of the three addresses were later printed in a broadside for distribution to the Society's seventy-five charter members.

Besides serving as the Society's first president, Richards was first president of the Genealogical Society of Utah which he helped found in 1894 and had been associated with the Church Historian's Office of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for fourteen years, first as an assistant and since 1889 as church historian. In his presidential address, the veteran keeper of Mormon history visualized his role as one of defining areas for research in Utah history. He therefore discussed the potential for work in more than a dozen broad subject areas, noted the abundance of source materials for Utah historians, and appealed for legislative funding to support the work. Richards predicted that the new organization, through its collection, preservation, and dissemination of Utah history, would someday rank among the best state historical societies in the United States,

After nearly seventy-five years, the first presidential address of Franklin D. Richards is still of interest, both as a definition of the possibilities for research into Utah's varied past and as a document from the founding years of the Utah State Historical Society.

PRESIDENT RICHARDS'S ADDRESS

Ladies and Gentlemen: Permit me to extend to you and to the State of Utah my congratulations on the organization of this Historical Society. It marks a step forward and upward on the path of Utah's progress. It has commenced at an opportune period. Half a century having passed since the Pioneers planted the flag of our country, as the signal of civilization, in this then arid spot on the Great American Desert, materials for the compilation of history exist in plentiful and varied forms. The relics of early times in Utah which made an interesting feature of our Semi-Centennial celebration, and which have been generously donated to this society by the Jubilee Commission, will form a nucleus for the accretion of similar articles, valuable for history in that particular direction. The work involved in their accumulation and care will constitute but one department for the consideration of this society.

The agricultural development of Utah embracing the fruit-raising, gardening, stock-growing, sheep-raising and kindred interests will form another department. The introduction, extension and application of the system of irrigation, in which Utah was the pioneer in the United States, will furnish another field from which history may gather a valuable harvest.

The commencement and growth of manufactures, from the simplest handlabor articles of common necessity, up through the successive improvements in utensils and fabrics to meet the demands of more luxurious times, to the mighty machinery by which the precious metals are obtained from the crude ores forced out of the solid mountains, sugar is produced and crystalized from the carefully cultured beet, and electricity is brought into action as a nightly illuminator and a daily propelling force, will be another source from which the historian will derive appropriate information.

The mineral products of Utah afford material for still another department of the history of the State. The vast extent and wonderful variety of these resources are the admiration of all investigators. At least eighty different kinds of mineral deposits have been discovered within Utah's boundaries. They include not only the precious metals and those essential to modern manufactures, but substances known to chemistry as of inestimable value. They are undoubtedly destined to attract the attention of the whole world, and to place this State in the very foremost rank of the mineral-bearing regions of the earth.

The evolution of architecture, as exhibited in the advancement from primitive log cabin to the stately mansion, and from the plain adobe structure with its small openings and little sashes, to the imposing edifices, public and private, erected and beautified with sandstone, granite, marble, onyx and other costly materials, obtained within our borders, must not be forgotten.

Nor must we omit the pleasing change that has taken place in the means of locomotion and inter-communication. The ox-teams and "schooners" or covered wagons, with which thousands of immigrants wended their way hither, more than a thousand miles across the plains and mountains, and which were the means of travel from place to place in this region, and even the mule teams which succeeded them, have disappeared. Even the fine horses bred in these valleys are now rarely used, except for pleasure-riding and short trips, and great railroad systems, bringing huge trains with living freight and masses of merchandise, have superceded them, built in large degree with Utah labor and capital. The electric telegraph at an early date was utilized here and lines built to various points, and now we are in connection with the vast network of lines that reach over continents and under the bed of oceans, opening for us intercourse with the world. The telephone also has been brought into use, placing us in the lead of many more populous portions of the Republic. The torch and the oil-lamp have faded out in the glare of the electric light, which now illuminates our streets, our public buildings, our comfortable homes, and almost dispenses with the use of gas, once prized as a great light. The story of these transformations and the benefits which have resulted therefrom to individuals, to families and to the State, cannot fail to add lustre to the pages of our history, and should be chronicled as marks of Utah's advancement and willingness to utilize the improvements of the age.

The opening and colonization of other valleys than that of the Great Salt Lake, the means by which they were settled and by which, though located at altitudes where it was supposed to be impossible to raise anything but mountain grasses, splendid farms and orchards and thriving towns and villages, with comfortable homes, school houses, churches, marts of commerce and other evidences of civilization have taken the place of barrenness and solitude, will also be found a worthy subject for the pen of the historian.

The history of the progress of education in Utah will date back to the very earliest days of the occupation of this part of the public domain, which was then Mexican territory. It will be seen that this has been commensurate with the growth of population, the increase of wealth and the access to those facilities obtainable from the best sources of supply. I need not particularize on this department, as it will no doubt be dwelt upon in greater detail and ability by others.

The department of religion will also necessarily engage the attention of laborers in historical work. The establishment of the various churches, the obstacles they have overcome, the property they have accumulated, the success they have achieved, both at home and abroad, and their general effects upon society and the upbuilding of the State, are some of the topics to be treated upon in this department.

Utah's literature must also be considered. This will include the publication of daily, semi-weekly, weekly and semi-monthly newspapers, also magazines, books, pamphlets, works in poetry and in prose, the establishment of publishing houses, the founding of literary societies, contributions from Utah writers to the literature of other parts of the world, and the productions of literary genius and talent from various parts of the State, which through the modesty of the authors, or for other reasons, have not been given to the public.

The fine arts must come in for their share of attention. Among Utah's sons and daughters are artists of no mean abilities and attainments. Painters, sculptors, musicians, dramatists, actors, decorators, fashioners of dainty fabrics and embellishments, are numerous among them, and some have attained national and worldwide celebrity. Specimens of our sculptors' art occupy already not only places in our State Capital, but in the niches of fame abroad. Music sits enthroned in these mountain valleys, the sound thereof has gone abroad in mellifluous tones to the ends of the earth. The paintings of our home artists have appeared on the walls of the world's great galleries and of wealthy collectors who are conossieurs [sic] in art. The fair sex excel in ceramics, the finest needle work and other artistic productions of skillful hands, and in various ways Utah exhibits talent worthy of record.

In the field of invention, the Patent Office at the seat of government will furnish evidence that Utah is not behind in the march of the human family.

The social customs, manners and morals of Utah will also engage the attention of this society. Our community is made up of people who have come from all the civilized nations and from some of the semi-barbarous tribes, while it has been surrounded by savages, the natives of the soil. The languages spoken by the residents of this State number at least twenty-five. The amalgamation of these varied elements of humanity into one harmonious social organism, is something worthy the attention of the student and the labor of the historian.

The political department of Utah's history is also of vast importance. From the time that the Pioneers established a local provisional government, which afterwards took the shape of the State of Deseret, seeking admission into the Great American Union, up through the conditions of territorial vassalage, the numerous efforts towards enlarged liberty, the repeated struggles and failures to effect this grand end, until at length the glorious boon of sovereign Statehood was obtained, and Utah gained her rights and privileges and was crowned with the glory of a free commonwealth, making the forty-fifth star in the National galaxy, points for the historian will be bristling with interest and ready to be recorded in the annals of our society.

The establishment of woman suffrage by the Territorial Assembly in 1870, its repeal by Congress, the incorporation of a provision in the State Constitution for equal political rights and privileges to both sexes, and its statutory enactment by the first State Legislature of Utah, after animated debates, are among those points that must not be neglected. The conflicts of parties, the works of our municipalities, our county boards, our Territorial and State Legislatures, the doings of our federal and local officials, the relations of our people to the government of the United States, the loyalty maintained through all the complications, difficulties and misunderstandings of the past, and the great and beneficient change that has taken place in the feelings of our fellow-citizens towards us throughout the Union, will all contribute to make this portion of our history momentous and of immense worth.

Among the means of information available on all these topics are the files of Utah newspapers, magazines and other periodicals, the local libraries, the State, county and municipal records, the journals and diaries kept by persons familiar with current events, for their own benefit or pro bono publico. The Genealogical Society of Utah, of which I have the honor to be president, has a library containing valuable historic records, pedigrees and kindred works. The collections in museums, and the recollections of old inhabitants still sound in mind and active in intellect, the libraries and museums in other states having a similar purpose to that of ours will also no doubt furnish many things which will aid in the work that lies before us.

It is obvious that this work cannot be accomplished without expense. Money will be needed for the prosecution of the labors of this society, and that which will accrue from the initiation fees and dues of its members will not be adequate to the growing demand. I suggest, therefore, that means be adopted to obtain from our State Legislature an appropriation to aid in effecting the purpose we have in view also to secure life-memberships, endowments and other voluntary contributions that the society may not be crippled or retarded for lack of necessary funds.

I regard the organization of this society as the foundation for a superstructure which will be continuously added upon, as the years pass by, until an edifice will appear which will command the admiration of successive generations, which will be invaluable to our mountain State, which will rank among the foremost institutions of the kind in our beloved country, and which will aid materially in the education of our people and advance the welfare of mankind.

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